About Obama More than Hagel

The White House has begun to leak indications that it won’t go to the mat for Chuck Hagel. On Sunday, National Journalreported that Obama is considering other candidates for the secretary of defense post, which of course has been true from the outset. Still it’s a sign Obama may be contemplating a reprise of the Susan Rice play–hang his preferred nominee out to be attacked, and see what happens. If he retreats on Hagel, he would be 0 for 2, and fuel some not very complimentary perceptions about the nature of his presidency.

I have no idea whether Hagel would be confirmed, or if he would be a good secretary of defense. He has a realistic sense of the limits of American power, and opposed the Iraq war early on, which highly recommends him. He has been vociferously attacked by the right wing of the Israel lobby. He has garnered support from some surprising sources, for surprising reasons. The most surprising was Jeffrey Goldberg, a hawkish center-right Zionist whose reporting frequently serves as an echo chamber for Netanyahu’s views on a war on Iran. But Goldberg (even Goldberg, I should say) feels that Israel is going too far with building settlements, making a two state solution impossible. He writes:

Maybe, at this point, what we need are American officials who will speak with disconcerting bluntness to Israel about the choices it is making. If the Jewish Home party becomes a key part of Netanyahu’s right-wing ruling coalition, you can be assured that there will not compromise coming in the forseeable future (it’s almost impossible to forsee compromise now.) Maybe the time has come to redefine the term “pro-Israel” to include, in addition to providing support against Iran (a noble cause); help with the Iron Dome system (also a noble cause); and support to maintain Israel’s qualitiative military edge (ditto), the straightest of straight talk about Israel’s self-destructive policies on the West Bank. Maybe Hagel, who is not bound to old models, could be useful in this regard.

I’m no fan of Goldberg, and have often regarded his support for a two-state Israel-Palestine solution as nominal at best; so this position–that confirmation of a tough-love cabinet officer disliked by the Israel lobby would be good for Israel–I would designate as the most surprising thing I’ve read all year.

Importantly, the confirmation process would be a major ideological and even educational event, even if the lobby managed to block Hagel. Jeremiah Haber writes:

If the nomination goes through, then Hagel could be facing tough confirmation hearings. I don’t think Obama would lose this one, but even if he did, the confirmation hearings would bring to the center some of the major concerns of the Obama administration — the criticism of the settlements while at the same backing a democratic Israel, the disinclination to act unilaterally in the Mideast, the desire to eliminate waste at the Pentagon. Win or lose, this would be a powerful teaching moment for the rest of the country. And it could help revitalize the grand tradition of Republican realism that was sidelined when the neocons took over the party and got us into mess after mess.

My guess is Obama will choose fairly soon. The so-called gay opposition to Hagel has evaporated, put to rest by the Senator’s apology to former ambassador James Hormel, the telling confirmation from Steve Clemons among others that Hagel’s view of gays in the military has changed substantially since the 1990s. That was largely a red herring anyway, though it was useful to Hagel’s Israel lobby opponents to be able claim the opposition to the nomination wasn’t all about Israel.

It’s really at this point about Obama more than Hagel, his backbone, his readiness to fight when he meets opposition. A replay of the Chas Freeman debacle of the last administration on a far larger scale would signal that Obama will likely capitulate to Netanyahu in his second term, much as he did in the first. The President is in danger of becoming known as a figure who won’t put up a fight when facing opposition, someone who hoards political capital–saving it up for what is not exactly clear.

If Obama does retreat, Hagel is likely to remain as a political force of some consequence regardless. He is a politician of both substance and courage; more than any figure in recent memory, he has galvanized the usually quiescent foreign policy realist community inside the Beltway. The realists should, by right, be a part of the Obama administration– but if not, they are likely to make their newly recovered voices heard nonetheless.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Hide 25 comments

25 Responses to About Obama More than Hagel

Once again I fail to see how this dynamic wasn’t at play when Van Jones was attacked and resigned without notice from many of Hagel’s current defenders, and then Shirley Sherrod was subject to the same treatment without the doomsaying for Obama that Hagel’s current defenders are employing, and Susan Rice’s not more than a month ago failed to turn into an existential battle for Obama’s backbone, but now that it’s Chuck Hagel anything less than a bare-knuckle brawl is cowardice? Why?

I shed no tears when Susan Rice withdrew for State. Her litany of corporate conflicts of interest and history of mediocre judgements made her a far-less-than-ideal candidate, more in the mold of Summers and Geithner. But the completely tepid support for a solid Defense candidate being hung out for the wargs to chew on over the holidays has not, shall we say, been keeping with the spirit of the season. The fact that the AIPAC cluster is able to act with impunity is already galling, but the Administration’s unwillingness to defend even a strong candidate is ethically offensive.

I am reminded of a line nearly fourteen years old about Clinton’s spineless governance, back from will George Will was worth reading: “Carefully husbanding political capital for expenditure in his third term, the Presisdent …,” While amusing and accurate, the observation was of course maddening.

I don’t see why the opposition of a bunch of professional talkers and three stooges in the Senate, none of who have ever supported Obama, should cause such uncertainty and delay in the White House. There must be something going on inside the palace, something not exposed to public view — people like Hilary and Rahm leaning on that pliable Presidential backbone.

Hagel, despite Pat Buchanan’s,Ron Paul’s, Scott Ritter’s and Dennis Kucinich’s outing before the war of the WMD lies and real motives of the Iraq War, voted for the war and would have remained pro-war had the war went well, even if no WMDs were found.

”

On October 11, 2002 Senator Hagel, along with 76 other Senators, voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution. [28] Hagel, a later critic of the war, commented on his vote authorizing the use of force against Iraq saying, “How many of us really know and understand much about Iraq, the country, the history, the people, the role in the Arab world?”

Philip Stephens of the Financial Times on Dec. 21st noted that Netanyahu is trying to force the US to attack Iran.
This clearly is no time for Obama to capitulate to the Israel lobby like he did with Charles Freeman.

“someone who hoards political capital–saving it up for what is not exactly clear.”

Norman Finkelstein has described Obama as a “stunning narcissist” – and others have as well.

Obama simply doesn’t want to be BLAMED for anything. It hurts his ego.

This is why he hasn’t gone into Syria…yet. It’s also why he hasn’t attacked Iran…yet. He wants the situation in Syria to degrade so badly that he can claim he has no choice. He wants to push Iran so badly that it will retaliate in some way he can use to “justify” the war his backers want him to start.

His behavior is like a pre-Emancipation plantation foreman. He obeys his master, but he drags his feet. But he’ll never give up his privileged position, so in any confrontation he will do what his master tells him and turn against his fellow slaves.

I predict he will dump Hagel. And you can forget about Obama tackling Netanyahu on anything despite his personal dislike for Bibi.

On her show, Rachel Maddow said that all recent reelected presidents had their cabinet replacements picked within 45 days of election and that it only took GWB 8. This raises a question about why Obama is spending so much time dithering. I’ve often read that a 2nd term president needs to act quickly if he wants to accomplish anything since, as a lame duck, he will inevitably see his grip on power diminish. Maybe Obama has been too preoccupied with the so-called fiscal cliff, but why he might want a deal on that before Jan 1 is beyond me. Mr M, to paraphrase your last sentence in your next to last paragraph, why is Obama still hoarding his ‘political capital?’

Chad – clearly the explanation is racism. That is the answer you are looking for. Never mind that Van Jones is a radical 9/11 truther with a checkered past. Never mind that Rice was bumbler in over her head yet who never has found a pointless intervention she didn’t like.

Certainly those two are on the same level as a former senator/combat vet trying to run DOD.

I’d love to see Obama withdraw his support for Hagel and then come back with Lawrence Wilkerson who has military and State Department experience as well as integrity and fortitude. If Congress gave Obama trouble, he could nominate Wilkerson as a recess appointment and then force the issue. Wilkerson’s performance in the meantime would be be proof positive, and a huge improvement over what we have had for the past 30 years. Moreover, if Obama went to the American people he would garner broad support for the appointment and see the public mobilize against AIPAC and its related lobbies.

Many good comments above. Ed’s suggestion that Obama nominate Lawrence Wilkerson is a very exciting idea. It would bring excitement back into politics and galvanize a constituency which has left the President of “Hope and Change” because of his back-pedaling on all important issues. I can’t imagine it, but a repentent Obama with fire in the belly and the polical courage of a John F. Kennedy could easily shred the McCain-style nay-sayers.

Give Hegel another important position and take dead aim at the neo-con neo-Republicans and go down in history as a truly great President.

Mike W. – Van Jones signed a document before serving in Obama’s administration has been a green activist for years with clout in that arena. Susan Rice was so in over her head that she served as Kerry’s foreign policy adviser in 2004 and in the Clinton Administration throughout the 90′s and I notice you ignore Shirley Sherrod who’s been a Civil Rights and Farming Community Advocate for decades. The answer I’m looking for is why when it’s people you are ideologically inclined to support you expect someone you don’t support to spend all their political capital on them while people who are just as objectively competent for their fields and already serving in two cases it’s no matter for discussion as a matter of fact you’re more than willing to repeat those very same charges.

Obama’s history suggests that he will not waste political capital for something as superfluous as a cabinet nomination. He goes to the mat only for the big things he really cares about – Obamacare, Supreme Court appointments, protecting the magnitude of Federal Spending – especially on entitlements, and of course beating the House Republicans over anything.

“Give Hegel another important position and take dead aim at the neo-con neo-Republicans and go down in history as a truly great President.”

I’m not going to be surprised if Obama doesn’t nominate Hagel, and even if he does of course he’d need to do some things before going down as great, and I don’ think he’s up to that for sure.

My bet is that he’s gonna leave office a puzzle: Certainly with his health-care project and Cairo speech of his first term (both early on) he seemed normally energized. But since then, if not almost comatose he’s certainly been highly risk-adverse for some reason.

Of course he’s still got time to turn it around (not that what he might do would be in a pleasing direction), but I’m very much beginning to doubt it. For some odd reason, esp. for a young man, he seems to lack any fire in the belly for anything.

He’s gonna leave a puzzle, methinks, and very possibly because of same leave the public wanting to hear some activist stuff from his replacement.

Excellent article. I hope the President surprises me, at least. Chuck Hagel is an excellent choice for all the reasons you cite; the President and his councilors have put him out there now and they get severely diminished or no credit for having done the correct or honorable thing should they abandon him for some presumably more acceptable choice. It would be interesting to know what the political Admirals and Generals are doing back stage on this drama.

“His behavior is like a pre-Emancipation plantation foreman. He obeys his master, but he drags his feet.”

“clearly the explanation is racism.”

Mike, meet Hack. QED.

I think McConnell is treating the nomination exercise as a game of chicken (or, at best, poker), where we know Obama is more of a chess player. Simply put, we have no evidence at all the Rice was his first choice: only that her name was put forward, and in the end became too much of a distraction. He still got the other name in the game, and there seems to be no opposition to Kerry – at least in the Senate, where it counts.

Hagel’s name has been put forward; he was savaged by his own Party. It matters not that Hagel was a late-term apostate of a single – and a misguided – orthodoxy. What is important is that a Republican was considered, and Republicans savaged him. There is no evidence at all that Obama is going to bend to the neocon will as a result of Hagel’s trashing; none that Obama is going to change his views, whatever they are, on Iran, Israel or Syria, even if he declines to nominate Hagel; there is practically no possibility that this concerted attack – illogical in the extreme, once Rubin dragged the gay thing out – will have any impact whatever on Obama’s foreign and defence policy orientation.

He is risk averse when it comes to putting American boots on the ground, as he should be; he will not be goaded into making bombastic declarations just because it feels good; he is an internationalist, a multilateralist and a Democrat, so where there is the possibility of leveraging US force withing a multilateral context for a huminatarian purpose, more likely than not he will respond positively, though quietly; on terrorism, he has no compunctions about using US force abroad. All of this we know already; none of this will change. Hagel or not, neither Rahm nor Clinton are likely to have a measureable impact on the future direction of the Administration; Hagel or not, there is not likely to be any change in the policy.

It would be a mistake to expect Obama to “go to the wall” on Hagel; it would be a mistake for Obama to do so, especially because it is not at all clear that Hagel is, in fact, the best person for the job. A good one, perhaps, but not the best. As there is zero chance that we will get a neocon in Defense, and every possibility that whoever it is, will be 100% behind Obama’s policy of the last four years, I think it is not sound to personalise this – from the Administration’s perspective that is.

With Chuck Hagel in at Sec at Defense there will be no war on Iran – with no war on Iran – Israeli Apartheid is LOST

Just witness the Neocon desperation over the Hagel appointment – it speaks volumes and is the same desperation exhibited by Netanyahu last fall as he was being thwarted from pushing the US into Iran –

And see what happened after Netanyahu was stopped…..

Miracle of all Miracles – a Palestinian state was born

Why? – precisely BECAUSE Israel could not stop it by having had pulled off a major regional war engulfing the US – does everybody see that?

The progress at the UN with creation of the Palestinian ‘good enough for the ICC state’ – the tremendous pressure now being exerted on Israel currently with Fortress Apartheid beginning to collapse – all of this is BECAUSE we prevented Israel from pushing us into a war with Iran. Does everybody really see that?

The Israeli/Netanyahu plan on Iran GONE AWRY is what is making all the changes possible – and here he have the Neocons with their last ditch efforts to get the plan back on track.

They literally have nothing to lose – if they fail with stopping this nomination they won’t get Iran, and if they don’t get Iran they will LOSE Apartheid

The Hagel appointment means ‘no war on Iran’ and ‘no war on Iran’ means the END of Israeli Apartheid – this is the secret – this is why the Neocons are on rampage

First, Obama’s foreign policy and his appointments at State and Defense HAVE been neoconservative, whether or not it was with less of a hands on “bombs-away” presence and more with proxies and robotic technology. Indeed, I would offer that even his appointment of Kerry, and Kerry’s advice to Obama will turn out to be a disappointment to those seeking a more balanced Middle East policy, if Kerry’s record in the Senate on the Middle East and Israel is any indication.

Second, I cannot believe that Obama will not cave on Hagel, in part because of the Israeli lobby which will continue to influence him, in part because he is looking forward to a new policy with Iran- though the architecture of that is uncertain- but probably thinks he needs to hold some political capital in reserve, and also because, it is not clear Hagel, who could be a good Secretary of Defense, would necessarily be the best choice, as I think you yourself suggested.

For all of Obama’s “strategic” thinking “at the chessboard”, I fear that he has not thought out all of the implications of detente with Iran- both with the obstructionism he must expect from AIPAC and the neocons, and with the contradictions that exist within his own foreign policy. (For example, how to establish the necessary trust to negotiate with Iran when he has been using so many means at his disposal to overthrow the Iranian regime, and also destroy not only Syrian government, but the territorial integrity of the country itself. Or, how to negotiate a meaningful agreement or treaty with Iran without fully understanding Iran’s core interests (or, rather, what Iran believes to be its core interests) or understanding Iran’s political and cultural thinking and context, or its theological and moral imperatives. Or, how to expect that Iran will not continue to support the Palestinian cause and the issue of East Jerusalem, given the importance to it of Jerusalem as a Moslem as well as Jewish and Christian holy city.) Moreover, I believe that for all of Clinton’s and Rice’s blunt talk, and reports of their willingness to “negotiate” with Iran, they are still operating within a neocon paradigm- and for them what might be termed “the Empress’ New Clothes”- and if anyone has reflected Obama’s foreign policy thinking, it has been Rice and Clinton.

What is this Syrian “territorial integrity” of which you speak? Syria, Iraq, and its neighbors are artificial countries thrown together by the British, the French, and Wilson’s League Of Nations That We Create* in the wake of WWI and the Ottoman Empire.

Show me the borders of Kurdistan and then there will be an argument to be made that the Middle East is on the road to “territorial integrity”.